You differentiate "Southern Gothic" from a presumed "Fantasy," when I would rather be curious to see how elements of each have influenced the other. I suspect with the authors of this compiled list of suggestions, the intents were more to explore commonalities of narrative approach than trying to define anything.
Then, as Camilla said, it shouldn't have been called a "fantasy list."
I suspect much of the "failure" here for many responding would do more with a resistance to abandoning (or altering at the very least) pre-conceived notions of literary taxonomy than with any real reaction to the qualities of the stories themselves.
Yes, people on the whole don't take well to the radical altering of terms for no purpose other than self-justification. The term Fantasy doesn't need to be redefined.
I don't think there's exactly a single definition for it, but perhaps you have learned something of this while in school?
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Since people are weighing in on that best fantasy list I posted, how many on this list have ya read?
- 06/12/2009 05:22:40 AM
2314 Views
A lot of those books aren't fantasy.
- 06/12/2009 05:34:18 AM
843 Views
Most of those depend upon how loosely one defines it
- 06/12/2009 06:41:50 AM
822 Views
Up next, fantasy fans attempt to co-opt Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. *NM*
- 06/12/2009 07:20:03 AM
263 Views
Actually, considering who put that list together, I'd at least look into their rationales
- 06/12/2009 07:42:11 AM
753 Views
Mmm... there's been a pronounced tendency among spec ficcers, from what I've seen,
- 06/12/2009 09:09:26 AM
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I'm a bit different than that
- 06/12/2009 09:20:09 PM
825 Views
Re: I'm a bit different than that
- 07/12/2009 02:04:47 AM
854 Views
Then what should it be defined as?
- 07/12/2009 02:28:55 AM
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What, didn't you major in Fixing Up Confusions and other Issues?
- 07/12/2009 02:49:30 AM
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- 07/12/2009 02:49:30 AM
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I majored in raising more questions and doubting absolutes
- 07/12/2009 02:50:35 AM
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- 07/12/2009 02:50:35 AM
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You majored in being a pain in the butt is what you majored in.
- 07/12/2009 02:52:00 AM
767 Views
- 07/12/2009 02:52:00 AM
767 Views
Fantasy has no easy definition.
- 07/12/2009 02:46:33 AM
801 Views
That's true.
- 07/12/2009 02:50:37 AM
765 Views
If you redefine fatasy as fiction, the category loses its value
- 06/12/2009 12:33:03 PM
781 Views
Remember what I studied for my grad degree
- 06/12/2009 04:10:08 PM
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Re: Remember what I studied for my grad degree
- 06/12/2009 04:33:58 PM
805 Views
Really?
- 06/12/2009 09:22:21 PM
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Re: Really?
- 06/12/2009 10:49:36 PM
875 Views
Literature does not exist in a vacuum
- 06/12/2009 10:53:58 PM
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Obviously I know that
- 06/12/2009 11:30:55 PM
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I've read 34.
- 06/12/2009 10:53:38 AM
644 Views
- 06/12/2009 10:53:38 AM
644 Views
Well, when individual preferences affect listings, such things happen, I guess
- 06/12/2009 09:24:39 PM
646 Views
78 that I have finished, but that is really not the point.
- 06/12/2009 11:55:16 AM
792 Views
Definitions of "fantasy" vary considerably
- 06/12/2009 09:25:35 PM
743 Views
According to the one you just applied, my master's thesis was one...
- 06/12/2009 10:47:25 PM
655 Views
46. This is an idiotic list. A Confederacy of Dunces just IS NOT fantasy.
- 06/12/2009 08:34:07 PM
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You say that, based on having read maybe 2% of the list?
- 06/12/2009 09:27:32 PM
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- 06/12/2009 09:27:32 PM
577 Views
Jane Eyre?
- 07/12/2009 12:00:36 AM
720 Views
It plays upon the Gothic novel precepts
- 07/12/2009 12:51:31 AM
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Larry...come on...if it's Fantasy I have a bridge in Brooklyn for you to buy
- 07/12/2009 04:17:38 AM
775 Views
Devise a better?
- 07/12/2009 04:34:46 AM
692 Views
It would be much shorter
- 07/12/2009 02:20:05 PM
958 Views
It should be shorter than some of the ones you listed
- 08/12/2009 11:26:35 PM
701 Views
- 08/12/2009 11:26:35 PM
701 Views
You seem to be misunderstanding Tom's post.
- 09/12/2009 10:57:08 AM
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No,I was just just commenting on my likes/dislikes of that list
- 09/12/2009 01:21:45 PM
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I read it very recently. He masturbates to a dog. Fetishes != fantasy.
- 07/12/2009 01:58:57 AM
624 Views
96... but so many books are missing that i can think of... i mean, really!
- 07/12/2009 02:07:18 AM
686 Views
It's an interesting experiment of a list, miki, and I think it's little more than that
- 07/12/2009 02:29:56 AM
610 Views
It would be a more interesting list if it contained more books that fantasy fans would want to read
- 30/12/2009 06:35:18 PM
848 Views

*NM*